November 05, 2023 - The right direction.

We had a lot of rain the past few days, but there was a strong wind coming from the South-West, which led me to believe that at least some boulders had to be dry on the South face of the hill of Apremont. While browsing bleau.info for inspiration, I noticed "Tropicaux", a boulder that I hadn't seen before, but going by its location description, I had a rough idea where it had to be and figured it probably had a good chance to be dry already.
On my way up the hill, I stopped at the classic "Clin d'Oeil" to warm up and try the sitstart as well. I repeated the standing start on my first attempt and after figuring out how the first two moves of the sitstart went, also did that one on my second go.

Fontainebleau - Apremont - Clin d'Oeil (assis) 7A+(7A)

Not far from there uphill, I found the boulder of "Tropicaux", which was more or less where I expected it to be, and it was dry as well. After a few attempts though, I just couldn't see myself reaching the high slopers, and it was only after I briefly tried "Trop de Piquette" just left of it, that I noticed that I might be able to use the nice small 'colonette' as a toehook and use compression between the arete and the toehook to reach the high sloper. To my surprise it turned out very well and after perfecting my right foot placement, I was able to get to it. The next struggle apparently was letting go of the toehook without swinging too hard and slipping off the sloper.
I persisted, and made it count about half an hour later. Quite physical, slightly morpho, but a really nice problem that I enjoyed a lot.

Fontainebleau - Apremont - Tropicaux 7B+(7B)